Delusive Fate

#056

“Would that really make you feel better? Those grapes, you can just put them in your mouth whole and chew them up, then spit them out.”

“Ah… really?”

“Won’t it just irritate you more, seeing you fumbling with that tiny thing there?”

“I see… I didn’t think of it that way. Sorry.”

Ki Baek-woo, still not eating well and with a sickly complexion from persistent insomnia, lowered his eyes. For some reason, he looked visibly disheartened. I’ve been a bit lenient lately, and this bastard seems to have gotten some of his spirit back, not leaving even when told to, and clinging to every word.

You like it when that what’s-his-name does that for you, huh? Seeing you do something you don’t usually do, it seems that way. How about it, Baek-woo? Hyung guessed right again, didn’t he?

In the past, I would have snapped at him like that and snickered. Now I hesitate to do even that, afraid. What if this guy runs out again looking like a ghost, calling “Hyung, hyung” all over the place.

Last time, fortunately, it passed quietly… I mean, unlike the noisy turmoil in my heart, it was socially quiet, but there’s no guarantee it’ll be the same next time. If Ki Baek-woo wanders around the neighborhood looking like he’s been severely abused again and gets photographed… If my name starts circulating everywhere with topics like “Who is this Mr. Lee, the culprit who drove the precious S-class Hunter, a national asset, insane?”…

Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up.

If that happens, my rosy peace will be gone even if I move to District B. No, I might be branded as a national enemy and have my real estate contract unilaterally terminated. The kind and handsome landlord that Mr. Bu Dong-suk from Bu Dong-suk Real Estate secretly boasted about might suddenly appear and shout:

“You dirty, vulgar, stupid, incompetent yet jealous of the talented Ki Baek-woo Hunter, you walking, talking trash! The worst narcissist! An incredibly ugly man inside and out! A cockroach like you can’t enter our house even for billions! You should die soon if possible! Leave this world, fucking trash go home!”

And then a pile of deposit money exchanged into 10-won coins flying at my face, reeking of iron.

“Fucking trash go home! Fucking trash go home! Your home is grave! Your home is hell! You must be ash! Fuck you fuck you!”

Led by the landlord jumping around as if his butt was on fire, a crowd gathers. The bastards start a campaign to expel Lee Han-sol from the planet, screaming their lungs out.

My body shuddered for a moment at this terrible imagination. As someone who has lived as a nationwide outcast for a long time, I can feel it. This is not just a groundless delusion. It could very well happen.

It absolutely can’t turn out like that. I glanced at Ki Baek-woo, who was picking grapes off the bunch. The bandage on Ki Baek-woo’s chin caught my eye. Every time I see that, I vividly remember how much of a mess Ki Baek-woo was that day.

Enough, fuck it. If he insists on doing that, I’ll just ignore it. I should just watch “Love is War.”

I shifted my gaze while chewing on the slippery, skinless grapes that were hard to pierce with a fork. On TV, an enraged wife was throwing a chair shot at her cheating husband and his mistress in an epic scene. Go wife! Go wife! Smash their skulls! Beat them to death!

I was starting to feel a bit better with the intense scene. Then Ki Baek-woo’s low voice cut in again.

“Just thinking about this makes me happy… So I thought you’d feel the same.”

“What did you say?”

Ki Baek-woo is truly talented. The talent to disturb Lee Han-sol’s joy and prevent Lee Han-sol from maintaining a decent mood. He’s a Newton-level authority in this field. I looked at him with disgust. He seemed about to say something more, but seeing me twisting my upper lip, he closed his mouth again.

Ki Baek-woo fidgeted with the surface of the grape in his hand for a while, as if emotionally unstable. His eyes wandered aimlessly, as if he was contemplating something. The hesitant movement was visible even through his lowered eyelids. Then, as if he had made up his mind, Ki Baek-woo opened his mouth again.

“Hyung, don’t you remember?”

Ki Baek-woo looked at me directly with slightly trembling eyes. His gaze, deliberately staring, seemed solemn as if he had finally mustered up courage. What the hell is he trying to say with all this fuss? I asked back, annoyed.

“Remember what?”

“Don’t you remember anything?”

“Ah, what?”

“When I had the flu… You did this for me. When I said my throat hurt but I wanted grapes, you did this for me…. It was when we were young, but not that long ago… Don’t you remember?”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Since then, just thinking about this would give me strength…”

I thought it was like… a proof of love… It made me happy. Don’t you remember, hyung…

Ki Baek-woo looked at me with a faint smile, watching my reaction. I happened to have an itch in my ear and scratched inside with my pinky finger. Ki Baek-woo’s expression, which had been momentarily filled with expectation, became gloomy again. What difference does it make whether I remember that or not? Anyway, I think something like that did happen, but I wasn’t particularly interested since taking care of Ki Baek-woo with utmost care wasn’t a rare occurrence.

Ki Baek-woo had a tendency to whine a lot despite his size. He was especially vulnerable to fevers. I used to hear often that I was “tougher than I looked” because I rarely got sick. Now that I think about it, it annoys me to think they might have meant I looked like a pathetically weak loser, but anyway, that’s how it was.

When epidemics like the flu or pneumonia went around, Ki Baek-woo would become the center of the outbreak 99% of the time, and I was a super immune person who never caught anything no matter how much I cared for him. Since I hadn’t been sick much myself, when Ki Baek-woo whined, it looked so pitiful and sad. When his white, pretty face turned red and he could barely blink his eyes, tears would flow automatically. Frustrated that I couldn’t do more for him, I would throw all kinds of fits every time.

The craziest thing I did was rummaging through all the nearby vending machines, braving a cold wave with heavy snow. I collected the remnants of vending milk powder left in the machines that had been broken and damaged by people looting. I ran around in the cold, losing track of time, to gather enough of those powders that would be gone in one taste, scraping them into a thermos I had stolen at some point, to make just enough to drink when mixed with water.

Because I remembered Ki Baek-woo sniffling after drinking a cup of vending machine milk that we had luckily gotten once, saying it was so delicious. Just because I thought drinking that might give sick Ki Baek-woo a little energy, I did such a crazy thing without hesitation. When I came back after begging for hot water from a relatively kind uncle in the neighborhood, my hands and feet had turned purple and lost sensation, but I was happy. Because Ki Baek-woo looked happy.

I did countless such stupid things. So many that it’s hard to remember each one in detail. That’s why it was ridiculous that this was what Ki Baek-woo was mustering up courage to ask about.

“I did take extremely good care of you quite a lot.”

“…That’s right.”

But who betrayed whom? I wanted to shout, “Who’s the traitor? Yell ‘traitor’! Whoo!” My mouth was itching to say it. So I popped one of the small grapes gathered on the plate into my mouth and rolled it around. Ki Baek-woo, who had been silent for a while, muttered weakly.

“It felt like… proof of love. So just thinking about it gave me strength…”

“I see,” I replied, and Ki Baek-woo smiled powerlessly. Though I didn’t mean to, even to my ears my voice sounded bored to death. But I really couldn’t care less about this story, so what did he expect me to do?

“So… I thought it might make you feel better too, or rather, I hoped it would…”

“I see.”

“…But I guess not. I’m sorry.”

“Okay.”

Ki Baek-woo’s voice, which seemed about to say something more, faded away. With a gloomy expression, his long fingers peeled the grape skin and used a skewer to remove the seeds. I focused again on the reenactment situation on TV.

‘Forgiveness? You’re talking about forgiveness! It’s you die, I die. I’m going to kill you! We’re over, over!’

The woman who had beaten her cheating husband black and blue shouted, full of murderous intent. Indeed, “Love is War” was the best program of this era.

***

I knew without being told that Ki Baek-woo was living like a deadbeat. But I didn’t bother to ask him about it first. It’s not like he was going to die from it, and it wasn’t my business anyway.

But isn’t this a bit much, scaring the living daylights out of me? Is this bastard trying to assassinate me like this?

I clutched my pounding heart and gasped for breath. I fumbled for the living room light switch, walking sideways like a crab, and turned it on. Ki Baek-woo was sitting awkwardly where I had just kicked wildly. Blood trickled from his nostrils again.

“You crazy bastard, what are you doing in front of the door! You nearly made my heart stop from shock!”